In the June issue of Vanity Fair, Jessica Simpson opens up on the real reason she decided to trade her Top 40 career for one in country music. The buxom blonde, who never quite broke through to the music industry’s A-list, is brutally honest—and slightly bitter—about her early years as a pop princess.

The singer tells the magazine she never quite met the standards set by Britney Spears and her like. “I wasn’t dancing and doing that whole thing. I wanted to set myself apart,” Simpson says. “But I was always third runner-up.”

June also marks three years since Simpson and Nick Lachey divorced, and she tells the magazine she and her former Newlyweds co-star have become perfect strangers. “I have not spoken to him in years,” she says.

So how does her new flame, Dallas Cowboys star Tony Romo, feel about her previous relationship playing out on reality TV? She says he’s seen a couple of episodes of Newlyweds—in which Simpson famously came across as a loveable airhead–and that “he thought I was cute.”